We were lucky to catch up with Jhonelle Bean recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jhonelle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Any thoughts around creating more inclusive workplaces?
I believe every work environment- no matter the profession- should strive for an inclusive work environment. Since I work in a career that focuses on disability advocacy, the environment is very inclusive and I’ve been so fortunate to experience that. When it comes to advice on creating an inclusive work environment, my number one resource would be to check out askjan.org. It is a non-profit that focuses on giving ideas on accommodations for a vast number of disabilities or limitations. There’s even a section that gives scenario examples and how the issue could be solved. It’s a wonderful resource for both the employer and for a disabled employee. A great actionable step is to check to see if your building has any ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) violations. You would be surprised how many buildings don’t have simple things that are up to code and simply say that their building is just “old”, and never make an attempt to change or improve anything. Even new buildings can try and skip out of ADA compliance in architecture due to a certain “vision” the designer may have. If a company doesn’t necessarily know that they have a disabled employee, some simple changes to make to have an inclusive environment be the standard would be to include captioning on videos and in meetings, adding photo descriptions to things posted on websites, and providing instruction in more than one method (such as providing instruction verbally, in a written format, and in a visual format). These things feel like an extra step, because they’re not things that people are always used to doing, but it’s so vital because you never know if someone could use these accommodations and discover that it’s actually something they’ve been needing to be more productive and confident. It’s important to remember that providing accommodations/making the work environment accessible is NOT an inconvenience, but a human right.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am a Disability Advocate both professionally and personally via social media. I spread advocacy on disability inclusion and often speak about my experiences having Tourette Syndrome as well. I started my personal advocacy in 2021 after I had worked on trying to hide my Tourette Syndrome symptoms from others for well over a decade. I learned that other’s responses of my involuntary movements and sounds called tics often came with shame and embarrassment. I remember one person even saying “Why are you doing that, you look possessed” while laughing at me, so I learned to try and “mask” my tics, or make it seem like my tic was me doing something else like stretching or repositioning. Speaking about disability inclusion and educating others on Tourette Syndrome has lead to me being able to help others, and I receive personal messages about it often. These are my favorite kind of messages to get, as it shows that what I’m doing is important. One story that sticks out to me is when a former coworker told me that since watching my videos, she believes that a client that she ahs for speech therapy may have a tic disorder. The “speech impediment” he came in for and had therapy for ended up being a tic that imitated a speech impediment, and his family was able to get him a diagnosis and address it as needed. Without that knowledge, he would be going to therapy week after week trying to reach goals to improve something that was believed to be controllable. How frustrating it would’ve been for him to not be able to reach the goals set for therapy because of something that’s involuntary!
How did you build your audience on social media?
I haven’t built a large audience, but I just tend to focus on the quality and information that I put out, and know that those that are following and engaging with my content are the ones I create for. Of course I would always love for even more people to be educated on disability inclusion, and I know it will happen organically as I continue my mission.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
The main reason I share and advocate is because I am hoping that if someone is in the same situation I was in when I was younger that they have more support, education, and resources than I did. When I was a kid I had some mild tics that others didn’t really seem to notice. But I had other co-occurring symptoms that come along with Tourette Syndrome, such as sensory issues, obsessive compulsive tendencies, and other things that I’ve spoken about more in depth on. The behaviors and sensory issues were just seen or viewed as resistance instead of thinking that it could be something else like a disability. When my tics really amped up in teenage years and became more apparent, those around me did not believe me. Back then there weren’t a ton of people talking about Tourette Syndrome or other disabilities like today. If anything it was mostly a sea of scholarly articles that my teenage brain tried to understand. I know that culture has a lot to do with how people view disabilities, whether it is more towards being supportive or dismissive, or even labeling it as something else. I am hoping to end the stigma on how disabilities are viewed and to help someone who may be in the same boat that I was in back then.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jhonelle_bean/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100069469544370
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/jhonelle_bean
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JhonelleBean
- Other: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTdWF2jVY/